BRIAN De Palma's outrage over the war in Iraq is palpable in Redacted, his fictionalised telling of the real-life rape and murder of a teenage girl by US soldiers.

Certainly this is a story that people need to know about, if they didn't know it already. His technique, however, tends to be gimmicky and cliched.

The writer-director strays from his typically stylised aesthetic with this stripped-down pastiche of fake footage: a soldier's hand-held video diary, a French duo's sepia-toned documentary, TV news pieces and online video from both a terrorist website and the blog of an army man's wife.

His point, of course, is that we're not getting a full picture of the war from the mainstream media. But by showing us absolutely everything from myriad perspectives, it feels like De Palma is beating us over the head. Taking this fragmented approach also slows down the pacing of the narrative; just when one part of the story gets going, we get yanked in another direction.

Ironically, Redacted might have been more compelling if De Palma had redacted himself a bit - if he hadn't been so overt, if he'd given us enough credit to think for ourselves and come to our own conclusions about these men and the choices they made. (The graphic ending, a series of photos of the bloodied bodies of slain Iraqi civilians, serves as a harrowing exclamation point. Then again, what else would you expect? This isn't exactly a filmmaker who's made his name on subtlety.)

he unknown cast members mostly look stiff and self-conscious, as if they're performing an off-Broadway play on film, contributes to the sensation that we're watching something that's obviously staged and makes it tougher to become truly immersed.

In revisiting much of the same territory as his 1989 Vietnam picture Casualties of War, De Palma presents the tried-and-true types of the genre. Within this unit of soldiers at a checkpoint in Samarra, there's the bookish Blix (Kel O'Neil); the enthusiastic Salazar (Izzy Diaz), who hopes the video he shoots will get him into film school; McCoy (Rob Devaney), the group's conscience; the overfed country boy Rush (Daniel Stewart Sherman); and the wild card, Flake (Patrick Carroll). Ty Jones plays their tough-talking sergeant.

There are some moments of genuine tension - a deadly IED attack, a scene in which a couple of Iraqis in a hurry fail to stop their car at the checkpoint with horrifying consequences. But a lot of Redacted consists of teasing banter and waiting for the inevitable midnight raid of a family's home where a couple of suspected terrorists live.

Far from home and fueled by a dangerous mix alcohol and machismo, the soldiers burst in, shooting whomever they please and taking what they believe is theirs. Some of them try to stop it. Others sit idly by and watch.

In real life, a 14-year-old girl was raped and killed in March 2006 in Mahmoudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad; her parents and sister were also killed in the attack. Four US soldiers already have been sentenced for the crime, a fifth has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

(Christy Lemire, AP)

Showing at Etoile, Odeon Cosmopolis, Odeon Starcity, Ster (St Eleftherios), Village (The Mall, Rendi)

There Will Be Blood

In a nutshell: The ambiguous moral tale of an oilman with a faint vein of goodness in him

LOOSELY based on Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel Oil!, Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood is the decades-spanning story of a hard, antisocial oil prospector named Daniel Plainview and his chance at redemption as he both adopts a son and encounters an ambitious preacher. There is, by the end, exactly what the title promises.

From the first discordant notes that play (courtesy of Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood) and lack of dialogue, it's clear that this story will be chilling and unusual. Indeed, the film is haunting, even if BBC composer-in-residence Greenwood's in-your-face orchestral soundtrack sometimes implies more drama than the plot supplies.

UK actor Daniel Day-Lewis won a BAFTA award - and may take home an Oscar too - for playing Plainview. In the part, Day-Lewis freezes part of his facial features - as if to stop any emotion from trickling out - and peers out at the world from merciless eyes. He produces a gruff, salesman's voice that also seems to mask his true feelings most of the time.

In the first scene where Plainview finally speaks more than monosyllabic grunts, he smoothly presents his plans for an oil well to a town, accompanied by HW, the bright, silent boy (Dillon Freasier) he's adopted. Only in one scene, where he confides in a half-brother (Kevin J O'Connor) he never knew about, does Plainview reveal his inner thoughts through words. "There are times when I look at most people and don't see anything I like," the oilman says in his single relaxed moment. He adds: "I'd like to make enough money to get away from everyone."

Daniel Day-Lewis

The story follows the Minnesotan's life from 1898, when he mines for underground treasures alone, to 30 years later, when he is a reclusive tycoon. In between, the film records the battle for this antihero's soul.

Though financial success smiled on him, Plainview's relationship with HW seems to be the true test of his moral mettle. When times are good, the boy tags along like an eager puppy. But when the boy is hurt in an accident, Plainview instead spends that night staring with admiration and dread at the out-of-control, enflamed well gushing oil.

Plainview is also tested by a nemesis, the young evangelical preacher Eli Sunday (excellent Paul Dano of Little Miss Sunshine). Sunday is the son of one of the men whose land Plainview bought in the town of Little Boston in 1911. The young evangelist, who straddles both the spiritual and material world, negotiates for a prominent role in his town as it is rebuilt to harness oil. Initially, Plainview brushes off the overzealous priest, who mesmerises the simple townsfolk in his makeshift church. But, with time, Sunday's demands become more intense.

As Plainview struggles with his dark self, the film constantly defies expectations. It isn't a film - as director Thomas Anderson and Day-Lewis pointed out at an Athens press conference on February 14 - with a love story, for instance, tossed in.

The risky film instead focuses on recreating a time, place and nascent industry, with lots of visual details of the early oil business. It never aims for documentary-like realism, though, as the film remains focused on moral battles and theatrical confrontations. In There Will Be Blood, there are lots of shots of Plainview thinking, but also of him battling with bedroom fires and exorcisms alike.

Though the final section of the film, set in a mansion in 1927, is somewhat anticlimactic and overdone, the film's unpredictable form and content have nicely lined it up for eight Oscars.

Showing at Aello Cinemax, Aigli, Apollon, Athinaion, Athinaion Cinepolis, Attikon, Cine City, Kifissia Cinemax, Nana Cinemax, Odeon Cosmopolis, Odeon Starcity, Petit Palais, Sporting, Ster (Ilion, St Eleftherios), Tria Asteria, Village (The Mall, Rendi, Pangrati, Falyro)